In many types of industry, it is quite common to deliver in bulk form bar-like objects, regardless of whether it is of a metallic, wooden, or other type material and discharge the same from a delivery truck, for example, onto apparatus which progressively arranges the bulk of bar-like material so as to deliver the same in a limited manner, such as one at a time, for transfer to operations which are to be performed upon the material. This is particularly found in the lumber industry, where logs or partially prepared larger timber or beams of lumber are delivered to sawing machines in which the same are transferred into finished lumber items of a substantially smaller nature than the original raw material. In order to minimize handling costs, machines have been developed heretofore by which bar-like objects, including timbers, have gradually been transformed from a bulk pile to a much smaller arrangement, especially one in which individual pieces are ultimately discharged from the delivery end of the machine for transfer to other machines, for example.
One of the very common ways of accomplishing such unscrambling comprises elongated members having toothed configurations on the upper edges thereof, one set of such members being relatively stationary, and the other set moving in a somewhat gyratory manner to sequentially lift the bars from the stationary member, then advance them toward the discharge end, and then bring them to rest upon the stationary member, followed by repeated steps of this type. In the prior art, toothed arrangements of various sizes have been resorted to and typical examples of these devices are represented by prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,139,027 to George, dated May 11, 1915; 1,180,737 to Rees, dated Apr. 25, 1916; 2,995,235 to Maier, dated Aug. 8, 1961; and 4,023,667 to Appel, dated May 17, 1977. Still another prior bar-handling apparatus, operating on a somewhat similar principle but not having a toothed arrangement on the advancing member is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,981 to Danieli, dated Sept. 20, 1971.
In said prior devices, there appears to be no ready means for adjusting the rate of feed, except possibly by varying the speed of a power means, such as a motor, but it has been found to be desirable in certain industries to provide for such adjustability in delivery speed and it is one of the principal purposes of the present invention to provide such adjustability by means of mechanism not found in said prior art.